Copyright held by the Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop
View Permission for Production Policy
written & performed by Ashley, Havana, Cory, Justin & Nick
directed by Kevin
under the influence of Joan Schenkar
(Note: The Reader describes the scene of each tableau as it is written.)
(lights up on R on stairs with railing, facing the stage)
(Nick begins the show in a tree shape on high platform)
(Helga and Strudel enter. They are conjoined at the forehead.
HELGA: (Looking out at the audience, section toward the dumpster) Well, well, sister, look what we have here.
Strudel: What’s that?
Helga: An audience. Hello, everybody, My name is Helga, and this is my sister, Strudel. Say hello, Strudel dearest.
Strudel: Righty-right then.
Helga: (this should have the feel of chastising someone for their stupidity, knowing there’s nothing they can really do about it) An accomplished raconteur, I assume you have come to see another sputtering an dilapidated version of the story that has come to be known as Cinderella, have you not? Alas, you have come to the right theater. But it is with sincerest regrets that I admit you will not be entertained. You will squirm and you will laugh at this meaningless and irrelevant portrayal of vanity, sex, hatred, and ballroom dancing. Whoever was the first to document the enchantingly vacant escapades of our stepsister was an utter ignoramus. Cinderella, as most of you people know her, is no protagonist or heroine. And make no mistake, she did not deserve what she had coming. Strudel and I are evidence that that good things only happen to morons Having warned you now of the oncoming onslaught of bad taste, I must apologize for such and introduction. Our intention is not to scare you away from the theater, is it sister?
Strudel: None the same, my Helga.
Helga: We only mean to be helpful in your pursuit of entertainment. So, in lieu of a night on the town or a surreptitious romp in the lobby janitorial closet, we present this shallow rendition of a childhood classic.
(lights change, h&s make move toward lowest platform, eventually standing on it)
The minute that wench stepped into our house, with those gorgeous clothes, and thatse petite little feet, and that beautiful face, we knew that none of it would do. We have a dire need to not be outshined by a witless child such as her. Top of our class, but never on the top list of hotties. Can you really blame us of immediately taking a vivid distaste for the girl? So we asked our mother, quite politely, to rip those garments from her body and throw her, as, into the fireplace with all of the ashes and dead rats and dirty coals. Well our mother only ever wanted the best for us, seeing as we have a minor “disadvantage”
Strudel: Well, I wouldn’t say minor….
Helga: Oh shut up, it’s not so bad.
Strudel: WE’RE CONJOINED AT THE HEAD! We’re a freak.
Helga: AAAAAASCHEENNPUTTEEEEELLL
(C crawls out from under platform, head first. nook created by plat forms by stairs creates sort of hearth)
(Aschenputtel enters, digging ash from her ears.)
Cindy: Yes dear sister?
Strudel: We’re going to the ball!
Cindy: We are? (C makes ash angels)
Helga: No, Strudel and I are going. (C stops, shocked) You’re making the dresses and figuring something out for Strudel and I. I say that if I were to throw these lentils into the hearth ash, it would be impossible to distinguish the lentils from mice feces. Strudel disagrees. Would you like to settle this?
Cindy: Yes dear sister! And after I finish all of these tasks may I go to the ball too?
Helga: Only when you’ve finished.
(TABLEAU)
(Reader steps into a lit area when Grimm appears, out when he fades away)
Wilhelm, the lesser known and less handsome Brother Grimm appears eating a veggie bratwurst: “Picking out lentils from the ashes is one of the many impossible tasks delegated to fairy-tale figures. Note that this particular task is not only impossible, but also degrading.”. He chomps the sausage, chokes a bit, and disappears.
Cindy: Oh thank you dear sister, thank you!
(Helga points to the hearth, holding a stopwatch.)
Helga: Ready…set…go!
(Aschenputtel begins picking through the ash. She finds something and holds it up to the light.)
Cindy: I can’t tell the difference.
Helga: Try tasting it.
(Tastes it without hesitation)
Cindy: (With a smile of satisfaction) This is not a lentil.
(S and H exit triumphantly)
Helga: I guess you’ve proven me wrong, Strudel. You are a master of wits. (pause) Aschenputtel, keep going.
(C runs a lap around platform and then runs up to them throwing herself at nick’s feet)
(Cinderella lets out a dramatic sob “Wahhahahaha”. )
(Cinderella runs wildly into the graveyard and throws herself down in front of her mother’s grave. A great tree towers over her.)
(Sings)
At home I toil hour and hour for days
and my stepsisters treat me like slaves
So if I go the ball I might be in luck
if I can find a man to take home and…clean with.
DMT: Oh quite all your whining, you little tart. And wipe off your face, it’s filthy!
Cinderella frantically wipes her face with a filthy grey smock but this only results in her face becoming more dirty than it previously was.
DMT: Well, get on with it…what do you want.
Cindy: (stupefied) Oh, uh, well. There is this ball. and my step-sisters said that if I could pick all of the lentils out of the fireplace then I could go.
Dead mom tree lets out a giant tree-like sigh “wahooosh”
Cindy: But, when I cleared them all out, my step-sisters just dumped another bucket in. By the time I finished, they were already out the door in the carriage.
Cinderella breaks down into a series of dramatic sobs. “woooooh wahhhhh. wewewewe”
(maybe try these C lines Lucille ball?)
DMT: Dear god child, won’t you shut your mouth?
Cinderella instantly stops.
Cindy: I just want to go to the ball. But I have nothing to wear, you see, mother dearest.
DMT: Well, that is no problem my…darling child. I conveniently have a collection of lovely gowns in the boughs of my branches. It would appear, however, that you might also need to go sob at the feet of the Avon Lady.
Dead mom tree’s branches sway back and froth, tangle in and out of eachother. She pulls a single gown from the midst of her limbs and tosses it heavily on Cinderella’s head
(nick shakes, he stops, C collapses under the weight of the dresses.)
Cindy:Oh thank you mother, these are so beautiful, I mean, I have seen better, but this is pretty good.
DMT: Well, there’s only so much a mother can do with a face like yours. Just be sure you are back before midnight because that is when those boys get touchy-feely.
Cinderella giggles in the way that is just as horrifyingly awful to hear as her sobs. “weeehhheeehahahahahahhahaeehehehchemm”
Cindy: Of course, mother.
With that she throws off her clothes and pulls on her new dress, running into the woods toward the ball.
Helga: Well, well, well. Look who’s still here Strudel.
Strudel: Well, well, welly weeelllll…..
(during next lines, nick the tree is chopped down by Havana, acting as a stage hand. should be a set number of chops, want it to be as clean of an exit for nick as possible. humorous, but not totally distracting)
Helga: (cuts her off) Shut up. Thank you Strudel. Well, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that this is the end of part one. The bad news is that part two will begin shortly. But, since you all have been a decent audience, I will grant you an alleviating, albeit brief, respite. between the vacuous insipidity of part one and the morally inane antics of part two. I have taken time out of my schedule to nicely type up a small article detailing what happened at this petty ball that our little Ascenputtel has spoken so much of lately.
Strudel: Please direct your attention to the new Cinderella underneath your chairs, we wrote it ourselves.
Helga: Well, I wrote it. You can’t read. Or write. You’re illiterate Strudel. (to crew) house lights please! So these good people might read how the shallow event actually happened.
(PAMPHLET BREAK, LIGHTS UP 45 seconds) (during the pamphlet break, helga and strudel sit on the lowest platform and play rock paper scissors, strudel always loses c walks through reading the insert. right as she crawls back under the platform she mutters “this sucks” or “this is crap” or something to that effect)
here is a knocking at the door
(using the gap between the stair railing and the tall platform as a “door)
The prince bursts in, stylishly.
Prince: (in song):
Hello hello I am the prince!
I would ask you if you had some mints!
For I am here to fetch a bride!
And if you please, I’ll come inside
Sorry if my entrance was alarming,
But here I am the one Prince charming!
Helga faints at the sight of the prince, taking Strudel down unintentionally. The prince saunters over
Prince: Are you my bride?
Strudel: N--- (cut off by an elbow from Helga)
(They sit up together)
Helga: But of course we’re your bride! Can’t you tell by my…
Strudel: Our
Helga: graceful figure?
Prince: (Clearly intentionally avoiding looking at them) Whosoever fits this golden shoe will be my bride, and all that jazz.
Strudel: Oh really!? And we can go to your fancy castleland on a unicorn and play all day in the lumberyard?
She Swoons
(the two fall back again on the platform)
Prince: Yeahhhh…Well, here it is, the golden shoe (admires the shoe)
(TABLEAU) (Havana will step into the light with his appearance, this fade is her body in shadow, with her feet still visible on the block.)
Jacob, the other Grimm brother, appears eating real bratwurst and says: “ In China, the slipper is used as a sexual symbol” He disappear, his feet remain.
Helga: I’ll try it on first, for I am the most important.
She tries it on but it does not fit.
Strudel: What does mother say to do if you’ve got to put on a shoe and it doesn’t fit?
Helga: (sighs) Cut off your toes.
Helga cuts off her toes and quickly shoves her foot in the shoe.
Prince: My…uh…love! My (hesitates) wife….
Two birds chirp normally, somehow this causes the prince to realize that she has no toes, and the shoe is very bloody
Prince: Ewwww.
(somehow, strudel and helga’s legs should rotate around the plat form as all of this happens. in the beginning strudel will face the parking lot, and in the end Helga will face the shop door)
Strudel: Let me try!
Strudel cleaves off her heel, laughing maniacally, and puts on the shoe. The sisters, now crippled, sink to the floor
Prince: I’ll be damned if my father expects me to marry a bloody cripple…(gasps) and your conjoined twins? I couldn’t possibly Is there anyone else in this house?
Helga: No!
Strudel: Well, there’s Cinderella?
Prince: Cinderella…bring her here
Strudel: (pause) Cinderella! Cinderellaaaaaaaaa!
Cinderella enters in a graceful flutter
(she should be sitting on the tall platform. P kneels)
He extends the shoe
Prince: Here’s a shoe!
Cinderella holds the shoe, perplexed..
Prince: Put it on
Cinderella tries the shoe on.
Strudel: A PERFECT FIT!
(Prince stands)
Helga and Prince: Goddammit!!!!!
Cinderella leaps into the prince’s arms.
Cindy: Oh! We’ll be so happy together
He drops her with a painful thud.
(somewhere in here, Havana has found her way to the center block, where she delivers the rest of her lines)
At this moment a flock of white doves envelope Helga and Strudel’s conjoined head, pecking out the sisters’ eyes. The birds retreat into the sky, their beaks red with blood and their bellies full of rice. The sisters lay in blind, crippled, conjoined suffering.
Strudel: Now we’ll never get to play in the lumberyard…
Cinderella is seen dashing into the room where the prince is sitting and begins fluttering around touching everything and oooing and awing, paying no attention to her fresh new husband watching her from his position in a chair.
(TABLEAU)
An image of Sigmund Freud appears smoking a comically large cigar, he blows a comically large smoke ring and says “The great question which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is, “what does a woman want?”. The image comically fades away.
Prince: (to audience) Allow me to introduce you to my freshly, um, acquired wife.
Cinderella runs across the room wrenching dresses violently off their racks and pressing them against her body, twirling unsteadily as she breathes deeply the intoxicating scent of high fashion
(there are 4 designated places that Cindy should run to during this scene, pantomiming the movements of admiring dresses against her body and digging through chests full of clothes. improvements on how she does this are more than welcome)
Prince: (to audience) Charming, isn’t she? (pause, motions to Cinderella) They say don’t squeeze the melon til you get the melon home.
Cindy: “YeeeeeeeeheheheheheHAHAHAYA”
(the laughs and bellows of C should continue throughout the scene, without overpowering the prince’s lines)
Prince: (to the audience) I advise you all to squeeze the melon BEFORE you bring it back to your palace. Come to think of it, squeezing melons really never was my thing.
The prince pulls a mirror seemingly out of nowhere, which is a constant habit of his. He begins to make sexy, sexy faces at it.
(by this point, Ashley should be digging through clothes right at nicks feet as he admires himself over her head.)
Cindy: Wahhhhhhh. hehehehehe. HOOOOOOyeah!
(this snaps P out of looking at himself, makes him aggravated)
Prince: Agh, if I have to stand another second of that unbearable laughter…
Prince: (strained) Oh charming wife of mine, do come here and let me romance you with a song I have written.
Cinderella sits up slowly. She looks down at her pile of nice things and pouts her lips a bit then slowly trudges over to sit by her husband. She takes a seat next to him and forces a meager smile.
Prince: (coughs deliberately)
Cinderella
Dressed in Yella’
Went upstairs to kiss a fella
At this moment the prince reaches down and opens a trunk next to him and pulls out a behemoth and obviously venomous snake. He brings it close to Cinderella’s face.
Made a mistake
and kissed a snake
The snake hisses feverishly “hisssssshhh”. As Cinderella’s eyes flutter open the prince pushes the snake’s snout into her face and it rages. The screams become muffled: “AhhhhloooaaaaaaAAA” as the snake’s poison immediately ruins her complexion, rendering her essentially useless for fairytales,, including those requiring a dead heroine, such as Snow White. The prince continues
Prince: How many doctors does it take?
(TABLEAU)
Sigmund Freud appears in tribal medicinal garb and says: “One. Me. The snake may be seen as phallic and thus symbolize dangerous and forbidden sexuality. The snake may also refer to a person around you who is callous, ruthless, and can't be trusted” He adjusts his leaf-skirt, and continues to watch the scene..
(Havana should retain the tribal freud position)
Cinderella has crumpled to the ground and the screams have become much fainter. A pool of blood forms beneath her which the snake proudly bathes in
Prince:We had been wed
but now you’re dead,
to bad that snake just bit your head.
Freud shimmies a bit and clicks his tongue while adjusting his glasses and saying “ The very emphasis of the commandment, thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers” He shakes his head in amusement.then retreats into the subconscious and fades away.
Prince self-marriage:
Prince: Finally I am alone with myself. Luckily it just so happened that immediately following our marriage my bride was tragically destroyed by my pet snake. No one would accuse me, of course, but I’m just so proud that it worked out so well.
An audience member stands up and says: “THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN IN THE REAL CINDERELLA! YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KILL HER! WHERE’S THE GODMOTHER AND TWINKLING WAND AN THE FANCY DRESSES!? THIS IS A RIP OFF! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”
Prince: Oh what would you know of it you Disneyfied twit! Sit down
Another Audience member: “THAT’S NOT EVEN DISNEYFIED! IT DOESN’T HAPPEN IN THE STORY AT ALL!”
Prince: I don’t care! Shut up! Besides (to the jerk in the audience) my father always wanted me to marry someone who was as rich and attractive as I am. So here you have it! If you will look to my feet you’ll notice I’m wearing the golden shoes!
Prince charming motions to his astonishingly dainty feet
Audience member: THEY WOULDA LOOKED BETTER ON CINDERELLA!
Prince: Yes, it just so happens that they fit me, now to you know what that means?
Prince Charming removes another mirror from his seemingly endless collection and gazes passionately into it.
Prince: I never thought I’d meet anyone like you. Someone who understands everything about me!
Prince: Well, here we are my love, we’re both at the top, the richest, the most beautiful, and the most loved!
The Brothers Grimm appear and speak to the audience “vanity ranks high among the cardinal sins of fairy tale figures” they remain
Prince: Do I take this man to be my lawfully wedded husband? I do! And do I take this man to be my lawfully wedded husband? I do! Then by the power vested in me by the State of California, I pronounce you man and perfection!
The Brothers Grimm applaud loudly as the prince kisses the mirror with gusto. An audience member stands and shouts: “THIS IS HORRIBLE! YOU CANT END THE PLAY THERE! WHERES THE HAPPY ENDING!
An image of Sigmund Freud appears looking much like the pope and rebukes the Grimm Brothers for their approval, saying, “The goal towards which the pleasure principle impels us-of becoming happy- is not attainable: yet we cannot give up the efforts to come nearer to realization of it by some means, or other”
Freud explores the audience, deeply probing their innermost thoughts and fears.
A final audience member “WAIT! AND ONE MORE THING…WHO THE HELL IS SIGMUND FREUD!?!?!”
(LIGHTS FADE).
